Labor Day 2012

Labor day I went to Avoca, to the Cohocton river about an hour from my house. I took my gear with high expectations of landing trout. I wanted to research the river to get to know where the runs and holes are now that the water is low. That way if I fish it in high water, I'm not fishing blind. I left around 6:40 and fished from 7:40 to 10:40.
I covered about a mile of stream bed and only caught creek chub and small mouth bass. While I was making a photographic memory of the river bottom, a slender dark object was swimming toward shore about a poles length away. At first I thought it was a fat snake about 2 inches round and 2 feet long. Someone had told me about a week ago that the Cohocton is filled with snakes. When it emerged from the water it squeaked and ran into the grass along the bank. It was a brown mink. I saw all kinds of water fowl but no snakes.
I discovered several good runs and three large root holes, as well as many under cuts. This river has some farmers field silt over the gravel but it still has plenty of aquatic life. The problem of no trout from a stocked trout stream may be because of over fishing during the week of stocking. The DEC provides a map of the cohocton http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/pfrcohoctriv.pdf

Well, it has not been a plentiful fishing August. And it's not a great start for September, but I'll hang in there. 

Because..... Fishing! What else is there!